Wireless digital networks, such as networks operating under the current Institute Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards, are spreading in their popularity and availability. Unlike wireless servers, discovery of wired Bonjour® or Digital Living Network Alliance® (DLNA) servers without using any external network component or additional configuration may be challenging.
In a hybrid network that includes both wired servers and wireless servers, an access point can only determine the locations corresponding to the wireless servers. For example, the access point can estimate the location of a shared device (e.g., a wireless server) based on quality associated with a received signal from a wireless server. Moreover, when a shared device is connected to a wireless local area network (WLAN) with location services enabled, the access point can obtain the location of the shared device from a location server.
Nevertheless, the access point typically is unable to determine or display the locations corresponding to the wired servers unless a network administrator has manually configured the locations of the wired servers. When a client device associates with the access point, the access point currently displays wireless servers located nearby the client device as well as all wired servers in the network regardless of their locations.
Thus, in a network with a large number of wired servers, when a client device of a user tries to discover a server, the client device is usually presented with a huge list of wired servers, which is practically difficult for the user to navigate through. Usually, additional and complex configuration is required to identify the locations of wired servers and to prune the server list based on the locations. Hence, a network device, such as an access point and/or a controller, cannot easily approximate the location of a wired server, and thereby refine the wired server list as provided to the user.